School Districts Meet Over Vo-tech Funding

January 24, 1986|by CHERYL WENNER, The Morning Call

Delegates from the three school districts that support the Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School brainstormed last night for a new formula to determine how much money each district should contribute annually to operate the school.

The workshop ended with directors from the Bethlehem Area, Northampton Area and Saucon Valley school districts disagreeing about which, if any, of the vo-tech administrator's proposals was

"I'm pleased that a dialogue has begun," vo-tech Director Donald Foellner said after the meeting.

The complex formulas outlined by the administration would determine each district's share based on calculations of average attendance, those eligible to attend, and fixed or variable real estate market values.

Early in the session, Robert Nyce of the Northampton Area School Board pointed out that the Bethlehem Area School District each year budgets for a significantly greater number of students than actually end up attending the vo-tech.

The district is reimbursed for students who change their minds about entering or remaining in thevo-tech program.

"First of all," said Bethlehem Area School District Administrator A. Wilson Woolf, "we should learn to more accurately predict the number of students we'll be sending each year.

"Secondly, when budgeting, the districts could simply agree to pay whatever they've budgeted (because the vo-tech may have already committed the funds for that year) with no refunds until the following year. Then, the budget could be adjusted based on the number of students who end up attending the school," he said.

Other alternatives were offered. Foellner said those proposals would be researched further, computed and sent to the three school boards for discussion.

For a new method of payment to be instituted, the three school boards must agree.

Foellner said that whatever plan is adopted must be fair and equitable to all three districts and must result in a budget based on recorded average figures, not projections, with cost-sharing percentages that will remain fixed after adoption.

Also, he said, the plan should ensure that enrollment is determined by educational needs rather than economic conditions, in other words, "put the kids first," as Saucon Valley School District Superintendent Eugene Mateff said. Mateff is acting superintendent of record for the vo-tech.